ECO Conference 2016: "Moving Through the Climate Crisis, and Water Matters - freshwater challenges in New Zealand"

Thanks to all the presenters and participants at this year's ECO

Conference in Auckland.

Details of the conference and presentations will be placed on the website.

Great to see the discussion on water and climate change over two days.

Further details of the conference can be found on the conference pagehere, including the conference programme and other details.

ECO ACTIVITIES

IUCN World Congress: ECO attendance and votes

Four ECO Executive Members - Cath Wallace, Barry Weeber, Diana Shand and Betsan Martin - attended the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii in early September. They participated in voting on 85 motions before the Congress on matters related to conservation world-wide.

They did their best, along with the many other delegates present, to achieve the best possible outcome for the global environment.

You can read a detailed account of the outcomes of the World Congress which is held ever four years at this link, and there is a summary of the results of each motion here. All 85 motions were approved by the Congress, although there was some resistance to some motions, or attempts to water them down which had to be resisted.

Open Government Survey

Thanks to the hundreds of people and groups who responded to the questionnaire.

ECO, through its democracy and transparency working group, launched the survey of NZ people and organisations from the non-government and not-for-profit sector in July. We wanted to find out what people want the government to do as part of its Open Government Partnership (OGP) Action Plan.

ECO will be producing a report on the results and posting that when its available. Thanks also to the volunteers who have been helping with the survey and analysis.

We will be sending a copy of the State Services Commission who is preparing the Government's plan.

Use our Resource Centre: an invaluable resource of books, journals and archives of New Zealand and international environmental issues. Contact the National Office as above. The Archive is now catalogued on The Community Archive. Take a look and email us with any inquiries about consulting material.

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ECOLink News and Analysis

The latest, and all back copies of ECOLink are online at this link. If you want to subscribe to get ECOLink regularly become a Friend of ECO. For information on becoming an ECO Friend.

The June-July 2016 Issue is out with details on the conference and other issues. See here.

ECO’s Digital Tools to Manage Environmental Projects have been developed to assist community and environmental groups in their projects to monitor and manage information. Digital tools can be used in a wide range of circumstances, examples include monitoring bird numbers after pest control, monitoring resource management decisions, compare mining applications with protected areas and biodiversity in the area. This includes demonstrations of the use of Geographic Information System tools available to empower groups to make use of data gathered during environmental projects.

It is designed as an online learning environment to guide and assist participants. The first module is “Methods to collect and manage data” and the second, “Mapping and analysis tools”.